Knowledge Park will be ‘first centre of intl standard’ in SA

LAHORE: Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif has said that the Knowledge Park in Lahore will be the first educational centre of international standard in South Asia where boarding and lodging facilities for local and foreign teachers and students, shopping malls, recreational centres and other facilities will be made available. According to a handout, the chief minister was addressing an introductory session on the proposed Knowledge Park Project in London on Friday which was attended by British investors, heads of universities and educationists in a large number. The participants also evinced keen interest in the project.Chief Minister Shahbaz said that the aim of establishing this unique park was to provide higher education facilities of international standards to Pakistani youths in their own country. However, he said, the nationality of a student would be no bar to his or her admission to educational institutes set up at the park. He said that all-out facilities would be provided to investors for setting up campuses of foreign educational institutions in the park. He announced that the campus of the first Information Technology University of Punjab would also be set up in this park.He said that Pakistan-United Kingdom friendship was based on strong historic and cultural ties and that we highly valued the UK cooperation in education sector. He said that extremism and violence did not creep in Pakistani society overnight and that it will also take time to eliminate these menaces. However, he said, there was a need to see the present situation of Pakistan in its historic prospective. The chief minister said that Pakistan has sacrificed over 40,000 precious human lives in the war against terrorism and that our commitment to eliminate terrorism was beyond any doubt. He said that militancy and extremism could not be controlled only through gun power and that we would have to remove various causes of terrorism by considering ground realities. He said that promotion of education and literacy was a prerequisite for promoting the culture of tolerance, patience and broadmindedness. Similarly, he said, we would have to eliminate poverty and hunger by riding the country of menaces of extremism and terrorism. Addressing the function, Punjab Education Minister Rana Mashhood Ahmed Khan said that the establishment of Knowledge Park on 852 acres of land at a prime location of Lahore would prove to be a revolution in educational economy of South Asia. Appreciating the efforts of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif for promotion of education, British High Commissioner Philip Barton said that positive progress was being made in the education sector and that the United Kingdom would continue its cooperation in this regard.